You are both insane.

On the one hand, "peace love &" suggests that allowing whack jobs to carry out their aims would get governments to listen to their possibly "legitimate" grievances. On the other, "No Name" suggests that more people dying needlessly will somehow shut us "bleeding heart liberals" up. Beyond the apparent madness of your arguments, both of you are talking about more, not less terrorism. More, not less violence. More, not less death. In what fevered, twisted, Bizarro-World scenario do you imagine that more of this will result in A, conservatives being proved right, or B, unjust governments being held to account? This kind of tortured logic smacks of the reasoning used to explain our trouble in Iraq. As one neoconservative "shining light" said recently, our difficulty has to do with not taking out Muqtada al-Sadr. As if to say the solution to the killing was yet more killing. As if to suggest that even if we took out al-Sadr (a huge get, I admit), that would end the civil war and bring the factions to heel. As if to suggest that once more innocent civilians are dead, we on the "left" will be convinced the terror threat is real. As if to suggest that with more innocent people dead, governments will finally listen to these disadvantaged people. See where I'm going with this?

For "No Name", we get it about the terror threat. We just have a problem with the notion of invading a sovereign nation that, based on all the evidence available, posed no imminent threat to us. We have a problem with breaking the law to do something that the law allows you to do with proper authorization, like surveillance. We have a problem with the President of the United States seeking absolute power and setting himself above the rule of law. Clearly you're worried about another terrorist attack on our soil. We are too. We just think that the best way to actually stop or thwart terrorism is to use the force of the law, work with our allies across the globe, and root out the reasons for terrorism as a strategy in the first place. That may seem "soft" to you, but the current strategy isn't getting much mileage now, is it? And the body count keeps rising.

For "peace love &" suggesting that the attack that was just foiled should've been allowed to go forward so that we would hear what they had to say is an affront to common sense. As a tool, TERROR DOES NOT WORK in getting a government's attention. As a practical matter, TERRORISM IS A CRIME. No one should have to get hurt to get a government to listen up. Try joining a progressive group that fights for what is just. It takes time, but it does work. Welcome to America.

If, as he claims, he is the ultimate arbiter of what's best for the country in times of war, then why does George Bush need the courts (or Congress for that matter) to affirm the fact? Do not all dictators simply take what they want at the point of a sword? Or did Bush miss that important fact in dictator school? Sleep through it, as it were, like he did his classes at Harvard and Yale?

The president seems to be devoting an awful lot of time and energy (and our tax dollars) to being declared emperor. Yet, if I remember my history correctly, most empires began as a violent exercise led by someone who took the reins of power, not asked for them. There's a world of difference. It's one thing to disregard the law as Bush routinely does. It's something else entirely to petition the arbiters of the law to surrender their authority and place you above the law itself. Bush seems to want to have it both ways. He continues to break the law while shopping for a court that will LEGALLY ALLOW him to break the law! The highest court in the land (the independence of which has been compromised) has already weighed in with its ruling that the president is not above the law. What part of that does Bush not understand? The truth is this, I think, or very close to this: Bush and Co. are a bunch of wussies who dream of empire without the messiness of violence and bloodshed which is the way most empires get started. They would rather have power GIVEN to them than go about the nasty business of TAKING it by force. They are quite comfortable with war as long as someone else does the fighting. In this they prove themselves to be the worst kind of cowards and the most despicable of criminals. Whatever reasoning it used, the court was right to rebuke them yet again. Beyond the brazen nature of the claim, they display their complete incompetence and utter stupidity.

The really terrifying thing is that these jail house, er, White House lawyers are getting paid an awful lot of money to come up with legal reasoning that only the Spanish Inquisition could understand.